Newspoll: 54-46 to Labor

The second Newspoll of the year is a wildly off-trend result that has no doubt made life difficult for a) whoever has been charged with writing up the results for The Australian, and b) anti-Murdoch conspiracy theorists. The poll has Labor leading 54-46, up from 51-49, which is the Coalition’s worst result from any poll since the election of the Abbott government. The primary votes are 39% for the Coalition (down two), 39% for Labor (up four) and 10% for the Greens (down two). Despite that, the personal ratings find Bill Shorten continuing to go backwards, his approval steady at 35% and disapproval up four to 39%. However, things are a good deal worse for Tony Abbott, who is down four to 36% and up seven to 52%. Abbott’s lead on preferred prime minister shrinks from 41-33 to 38-37.

Elsewhere in polldom:

• Roy Morgan is more in line with the recent trend in having the Coalition up half a point on the primary vote to 41%, Labor down 1.5% to 35.5%, the Greens steady on 10.5%, and the Palmer United Party steady on 4.5%. Labor leads by 50.5-49.5 on both two-party preferred measures, compared with 52-48 on last fortnight’s respondent-allocated result and 51-49 on previous election preferences. The Morgan release also provides state breakdowns on two party preferred, showing the Coalition leading 52.5-47.5 in New South Wales and 55-45 in Western Australia, while Labor leads 54.5-45.5 in Victoria, 52-48 in Queensland, 53.5-46.5 in South Australia and 50.5-49.5 in Tasmania.

• The Australian National University has released results from its regular in-depth post-election Australian Election Study mailout survey, the most widely noted finding of which is that Tony Abbott scored the lowest rating of any election-winner going back to 1987. The survey asks respondents to rate leaders on a scale from zero to ten, with Abbott scoring a mean of 4.29 compared with 4.89 for Julia Gillard in 2010; 6.31 for Kevin Rudd in 2007; 5.73, 5.31, 5.56 and 5.71 for John Howard in 1996, 1998, 2001 and 2004 respectively; 4.74 for Paul Keating in 1993; and 6.22 and 5.46 for Bob Hawke in 1987 and 1990 respectively.

• The Age reports that a poll of 1000 respondents by UMR Research, commissioned by the Australian Education Union, finds Malcolm Turnbull (a net rating of plus 12%) and Joe Hockey (plus 2%) to be rated more favourably than Tony Abbott (minus 8%).

UPDATE (Essential Research): The weekly Essential Research has Labor’s lead steady at 51-49, with the Coalition up a point on the primary vote to 42%, Labor down one to 39% and the Greens up one to 9%. Also featured: “government handling of issues”, showing neutral net ratings for the government’s best areas (economic management, asylum seekers, foreign relations) and strongly negative ones for welfare, service provision and industrial relations. Worst of the lost is “supporting Australian jobs”, at minus 19%. The existing renewable energy target is broadly supported (39% about right, 25% too low, 13% too high); opinion of Qantas has deteriorated over the past year (11% say they have come to feel more positive, 25% more negative), and there is support for the government buying a share of it or guaranteeing its loans; and opinion on government moves to crack down on illegal file sharing is evenly divided.

UPDATE 2:The West Australian reports that a Patterson Market Research survey conducted before last week’s High Court ruling from an undisclosed sample size suggests the micro-party vote would wither if a fresh Senate election was held. The poll has the Liberals on 45%, up six on its Senate vote at the election, Labor on 32%, up five, and the Greens on 12%, up three. The Palmer United Party collapses from 5% to 1%, with all others halving from 20% to 10%. However, one wonders how good polls are at capturing the sentiment that causes indifferent voters to plump for micro-parties at the last minute.

if (and hopefully when) scotland gets independence, I’m going to reclaim my heritage and immigrate ‘home’ (it’s only been 160-80 years since my forbears left) – an oil and gas rich socialist country that speaks a form of english, is beautiful, is the home of single malts, and the climate will improve for my dotage (rather by there than for the heatwaves we’ll be having when I’m in my 80s in 40 years’ time).

so its not true boats are not coming they are just not arriving having been arraigned by big navy boats. are good to know the navy are up to the job. when will this sideshow act called a govt end? or how?

there’s no much atmosphere up there and tony is doing his best to f… up what is there. i am surprised the earth (and his god) is so forgiving and long lasting. is there such a thing as ‘crime against the earth’? remember tony got his kickstart from fouling this earth

Bemused I am surprised but not surprised that the appalling fire on the outskirts of Morwell has barely got any coverage locally in Victoria, let alone nationally. An entire town is living under a smoky debilitating cloud of toxic smoke day in day out. But barely warrants a mention.

If it were Kew or South Yarra it would be front page news.

Similar experience by all accounts in the recent UK floods where the floods in the affluent home counties around the Thames got blanket media coverage yet similar floods in the North of England barely mentioned.

Bemused I am surprised but not surprised that the appalling fire on the outskirts of Morwell has barely got any coverage locally in Victoria, let alone nationally. An entire town is living under a smoky debilitating cloud of toxic smoke day in day out. But barely warrants a mention.

If it were Kew or South Yarra it would be front page news.

Similar experience by all accounts in the recent UK floods where the floods in the affluent home counties around the Thames got blanket media coverage yet similar floods in the North of England barely mentioned.

It is sickening.

Jon Faine is regularly mentioning it on 774 and expressing his horror and trying to drag out the truth.

Both the smoke and the ash would be rather nasty and of considerable toxicity. I don’t think we are being told anything even approximating the truth.

If those votes were distributed evenly between the states there would be over 100 multiple votes in WA. That is more than enough votes to throw out the Senate result without a single ballot being missing.

Sorry to disappoint but most (>75%) of the Scottish oil is gone by now, and the north sea fields near Scotland are in decline. What is left will not make Scotland very wealthy the way it has done for Norway.

I’ve been away a lot, so didn’t really experience the really bad days, but last Monday and Tuesday in particular were awful. In Moe, that is. It was difficult to breathe if outside for any length of time.

I can’t imagine what it’s like in Morwell to have to suffer that sort of environment day in, day out. Horrible and dangerous by the sounds of the amount of CO.

Apparently there was another grass fire today at Hazelwood, or so CFAUpdates on Twitter said. Couldn’t see any smoke, and there was quite a stiff easterly.

But a really large crack has opened up in the disused Hazelwood mine, not exactly where the fires are, but in the same mine and that too is hampering efforts to fight the fire, not to mention the lack of water.

There’s three articles in yesterday’s Latrobe Valley Express that are quite informative.

Bemused I am a told that these fires can burn for years. My contacts tell me State bureaucrats are deeply worried about the viability of not evacuating Morwell residents….

They were saying today that they have extinguished 50% of it and will put the rest out.
One caller who claimed fire fighting knowledge and experience said they should have flooded the mine.
Some bureaucrat was saying they considered using explosives to collapse the burning section of the wall onto the floor of the mine but it was ruled out because of the possibility of the Princes Hwy collapsing into it.
Brown coal is the filthiest of fuels and I would not like to breathe the smoke or be exposed to the ash.

A final thought on Craig Thomson: had the Coalition persuaded the conservative independents to support it in minority government in 2010 and then one of their MPs (maybe Peter Slipper but let’s say someone else) found themselves subject to serious allegations of impropriety. Does anyone think for 3 nanoseconds that Tony Abbott and the Coalition would not have closed ranks behind them and pulled out all stops to defend and support them. And they would have had the support and protection of the Murdocracy, which would have done their best to bury the story or minimise its impact.

Labor has its problems but handing over the Federal government to far right ideologues is not the solution. Bill Shorten supported the Parliamentary apology for Craig Thomson’s misdeeds, a grubby diversionary tactic on the part of the Government to distract the public from their true agenda, ongoing failures and monumental incompetence. Now get back to the real issues. The Abbott Government is presiding over huge job losses, the collapse of manufacturing in this country, the trashing of the environment, taken the first steps to dismantle Medicare, is preparing the ground to back out of its commitment to the NDIS, has already backflipped on its commitment to education funding and is planning to attack pensions. It is also withdrawing from action to address climate change, has pissed off our neighbours and has seriously failed in its duty of care to asylum seeker detainees under its care in its pursuit of the bogan vote.